


static motion

by seventhsense (latenightboysclub)



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Being Lost, Drug Use, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, New York City, Relationship Issues, Self-Denial, Smut, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Wanderlust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2017-09-17
Packaged: 2018-12-30 18:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12114294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/latenightboysclub/pseuds/seventhsense
Summary: you're rushing to destruction 'cause you don't have nothing left.





	static motion

**Author's Note:**

> there's a scene with some drug use but it's nothing big really just fyi!
> 
> i was in a drake mood this weekend so soundtrack for this: jungle and hold on, we're going home, and also erykah badu's on & on which i got the summary from!!

Seoul is no New York and New York is no Osaka, but it's a replacement. Their (his) apartment is small. Matchbox-sized, impossibly cluttered with belongings scattered and mismatched. Socks without pairs. Doyoung thinks he's trying to insert himself into a place he knows he's not going to fit into.

 

He's illuminated by Manhattan's distant glow and orange streetlamps, figure wiry and familiar. There's a cigarette in his mouth, half-finished with ashes built up on the end. He smokes on the tiny balcony that can barely be called a balcony; it's more of a fire escape if anything. Doyoung's watched him countless times. Yuta glances over his shoulder. He sees it in Doyoung's eyes every time their gazes meet. He knows what Doyoung's thinking, from months of being around one another Yuta knows his thoughts down to the very last sentence.

 

He chuckles and steps over the threshold and back into the bedroom. He sits on the edge of the twin-xl bed and blows out his last drag. Nicotine only smells good when it's mixed with the scent of the blue bedsheets. "Oh, don't look at me like that," he says without bite, brushing the backs of his knuckles along Doyoung's jaw. "You think I'd ever forget you if I left?"

 

The silence is the answer. Doyoung's lips purse together into a line and Yuta's eyes follow this once. "Of course not." The response is delayed and they both know they're breaking but neither of them wants to be the one to say it.

 

"Of course not," Yuta repeats to reassure him, but he knows it doesn't work that easily. He sighs and brushes a thumb along the deep cupid's bow of Doyoung's lips. "What will it take to show you, baby?"

 

He fucks Yuta slow tonight. They both have nowhere to be. Doyoung has too much time he can't give and Yuta has too little desire to want more. "Pick up the pace, will you?" Yuta chuckles breathlessly, wrapping a hand around Doyoung's own, fingers tying together. "You know how I like it."

 

Doyoung calls himself selfish for wanting more than what Yuta needs but for now the bedsheets comfort him a little more while they're still full.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Maybe he feels trapped. Have you asked?"

 

"Are you saying that I'm tying him down?" Jaehyun isn't saying anything specifically, but Doyoung's been on edge for a long time.

 

The younger of the two holds up his hands. "I'm not saying _you're_ holding him back. Maybe he needs a change of scenery. You know he can't be in one place for too long."

 

Doyoung holds his head in his hands and grips at his hair. He knows that. He's known it from the moment he met Yuta that he has to be in a new place every-so-often. There's no reason besides the fact that Yuta can't find stability anywhere. He constantly needs new scenery, new people. His life is lived in a technicolor whirl and Doyoung can't stand it. He wants to tie Yuta down and keep him in the small apartment in Lower Manhattan and do their best for now to enjoy life in a city where no one will know their names no matter how hard they try.

 

"Why isn't New York enough for him? It's always moving, always changing," Doyoung complains. "I can barely keep up sometimes." He would turn tail and retreat home to Gyeonggi-do, but not while his brother is still flourishing in L.A. Going home isn't an option.

 

Jaehyun takes a long sip of his double mocha frappe and hums. From the flavor or what he's saying, Doyoung can't care. "Do you think he'll go back to Osaka?"

 

He shakes his head. "He doesn't live anywhere more than once if he can avoid it."

 

"So he won't be back in Manhattan if he leaves, huh," Jaehyun observes flatly. "Anywhere could be better for him than this." Doyoung's mind registers Jaehyun's _this_ as a backhanded allusion to their relationship. "Did you ask him why not here?"

 

"I can't," he chokes out. "Do you know how hard it is to go through this? And for what? This feels like I'm suffering for nothing. Maybe I am, and he's leading me on, and he's going to leave me no matter how many times he promises after we make out on his fire escape, after we fuck. God, he looks like he's going to give me the world when we're lying in bed together late at night and I keep leaving stuff at his place and he lets me but I feel like I'll never be able to fit there because he doesn't fit there either--"

 

A warm hand covers his and Doyoung doesn't realize the frustrated tears in his eyes until he sees Jaehyun in fuzzy monochrome. "Do you want me to talk to him?"

 

"He won't listen," Doyoung chuckles bitterly. "We're both hard-headed in that sense."

 

Jaehyun gives him a small, sympathetic smile. "I have to get to my next class," he says slowly after a few moments. He's gone in a whirl of airconditioning and an "I'll see you later", leaving Doyoung at the table with his empty cup and blueberry scone crumbs.

 

The tension in Doyoung's shoulders melts when Jaehyun disappears into the green of Central Park. He takes a long sip from his drink. The ice in his Americano has melted into the coffee and left it watered down. Time only runs forward and Doyoung wishes his coffee was still strong, wishes his will was as strong as his coffee. Wishes he had taken Yuta's advice and not fallen in love so soon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's late on Friday. They could've gone to the MET or went to Central Park but they slept in and stayed in and fucked until they were exhausted. It wasn't until later did Doyoung's roommate call about a party happening at a friend's in Soho, and needless to say they were there. Yuta claimed it was because Doyoung needed to let loose a bit-- maybe it was because of the free booze.

 

Yuta had told him to open wide and passed him a pretty pink pill with his own tongue no more than twenty minutes ago. He then coaxed him into Johnny's impossibly small bathroom and put Doyoung up on the sink, button up shirt popped wide open and body alight with whatever the hell Yuta gave him. He saw the same look in Yuta's eyes and felt himself shudder down to his toes once they met up in the bathroom.

 

A hand undoes Doyoung's jeans and strokes at his half-hard cock. Yuta pants against Doyoung's mouth. "Are you alright?" A clammy hand runs down his chest and stomach, but instead of shying away, he arches into the touch. It feels like electricity under his skin, nerve endings tingling with static. "Let me know."

 

He twitches and pulls Yuta closer, tangling his fingers in unkempt brown hair. He arches his back a little more and earns a praise cooed in his ear that makes him moan a little louder. "I'm good, really good, Yuta. Fuck, fuck, I could just kiss you forever," he rasps. "Christ."

 

Yuta's mouth is wet and hot, tongue licking stripes up the column of his throat. He shivers. His mind's in the clouds and he's on fire and everything is hypersensitive. His mind is chanting _Yuta, Yuta, Yuta._ Sex with him is amazing, but under the influence of pretty pink pills and lost inhibitions, it's phenomenal.

 

Doyoung's skin hunger is insatiable. The muscle tank Yuta had on, now discarded in the bathtub, was teasing him all through the party, flashing glimpses of dusty nipples and lean torso. Right now he just wants to recommit every line of Yuta's fantastic body to his hyperfocused memory.

 

He hasn't relaxed in a long time. Doyoung's underclassman years were nowhere close to this moment, and he's thankful he's mustered up the courage to let it all out tonight. He feels strangely safe in the bathroom of someone he doesn't know, only because he's here with Yuta. He realizes what he's feeling and his mouth forms the words before his brain processes them.

 

"I love you," Doyoung slurs, pressing his face into Yuta's neck. He feels warm and fuzzy and Yuta makes him feel so good, so good. "I love you, love you, love you, Yuta. I love you so much."

 

The bass music pounds through the closed door. "Yeah, me too," Yuta sighs. "Go on and come for me, baby."

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It could be that _you're_ the one afraid of commitment?" Taeil hums and flips through his academic journal. He asks naturally without looking up from the pyruvate decarboxylation chapter. The enzymes on the pages dance in rainbow colors and sleep deprivation has put Doyoung's mind on slow motion.

 

"How could that even be true?" Doyoung's voice raises in pitch; he knows Taeil's right.

 

The older boy rests his chin on his hand and his face remains mellow. He doesn't have to say anything to get his point across, he communicates with his eyes and never much beyond that. Doyoung wonders what his eyes look like at this moment; anxious, exhausted. Apprehensive.

 

They step out of the corner coffee shop into the night air. It's late. Potholes blow thick steam up from the concrete. September dances with the heat of August and Doyoung wonders for the millionth time where he went wrong.

 

Taeil spares conversation and thinks out loud. "Ten was like that too, you know. Had to be here. Think he was running away from something back home. I don't think I really loved him, though. He needed someone to stay with for a while and he happened to be unattached and kept my bed warm." The older boy hums, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet at the curb while they wait for the light. The words sound harsh, especially coming from Taeil.

 

"I don't intend to reduce him to a fling, of course," he says thoughtfully. His eyes look distant. "You know we had an on-and-off type thing going on. And I thought about it for a long time before I decided to cut it off." The light turns green. "We didn't have shared goals, even though we cared for each other a lot."

 

Doyoung doesn't like what he's hearing, but he listens. "Understand that I was getting ready for grad school, Doyoung. I didn't have time for someone younger at heart and still chasing the impossible. I had to grow up and he didn't want to. He was a one-of-a-kind-type person, godly dancer. My best lover." Taeil sighs the way he does when he mind isn't there. "But if I had the chance to do it over, I wouldn't change anything."

 

"You have good intentions, Doyoung," is all Taeil says when he drops him off at his dorm. And then Taeil's gone too, leaving him fumbling with his keys in the dark. The key he shoves into the lock doesn't open the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

They're on the balcony-fire escape together when Yuta offers Doyoung a cigarette. He holds it in his mouth while Yuta lights it with the end of his own. It's intimate. End-of-summer storm clouds roll in from the west.

 

Amber smoke curls up into the sky. "I like New York, Doyoung. Always something to do." He hums. "Too much to do, maybe."

 

"You think we'll ever be something here? Once undergrad is over, then what?"

 

Yuta puts his elbows up on the railing, exhaling smoke from his nostrils. "Who fucking knows." He closes his eyes to revel in the next drag. He tries to center himself when he does that, Doyoung's noticed. He's watched him for months, observed him up close and from afar, watching the way he does this or does that.

 

Doyoung fiddles with his own cigarette, barely touched. "Dance, maybe? Teach lessons at Juilliard?"

 

He snorts. "You think I'll teach some prissy white kids how to street dance?"

 

"Yeah, you're right," Doyoung mumbles, turning pink.

 

"I'm teasing, you brat," Yuta says fondly, kissing Doyoung with a mouth full of smoke. The first patters of rain dribble on the fire escape. They separate and stay close, shoulders brushing, noses bumping. "I could do that. Just don't know what I want yet."

 

"I want Broadway. My name in lights. But everyone wants that these days," Doyoung whispers it like a secret. "My brother made it big, I want it too."

 

Yuta's eyes reflect the sparkle in his own. "Then do it. It's yours. Anything you want is yours." He bites his lip and lets his half-lidded gaze focus on Doyoung's lips. "I'm yours." The words turn Doyoung's knees to jelly.

 

"Let me have all of you," he murmurs, and Yuta does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _"Some people just aren't meant to work out,"_ Taeyong's text reads. _"That's just the way it goes sometimes."_ Doyoung dodges people traffic with practiced ease and swipes out a reply as he moves down the platform to wait for the train.

 

_"But not all the time."_

 

The next reply takes some time and the triple dots bounce up and down like Doyoung's anxiety. _"The point is that sometimes you'll have to wait and see what happens, no matter how much communication you have, no matter how much you love each other."_

 

The train to Coney Island is delayed by ten minutes.

 

_"Some people love for a long, long time, but you're both twenty-one going on twenty-two and you have lives ahead of you that you haven't lived yet. Other potential lovers that you haven't met."_

 

_"And???"_

  
He stands against the wall under the tiled words "Prince Street Station". It's always so fucking hot in the subway but waiting for Taeyong's next texts makes him burn up beyond the heat of the underground.

 

_"I'm not saying this to scare you, Doyoung. I know what he means to you."_

 

_"Then could you say some things that won't scare me?"_

 

_"No. I don't know what will happen for you, it's not my relationship. But you need to stop acting like a child and be prepared to see that it could go anywhere."_

 

Doyoung doesn't respond to that.

 

His phone vibrates with a final message. _"I have to go. I'll call you."_

 

The train pulls into the station.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Will you leave?" Doyoung asks at two-thirty-two a.m with Yuta's hands up the front of his linen shirt. He's pinned to the wall in the impossibly small hallway. He feels a little claustrophobic. A train horn blares through the bumblebee buzzing of Manhattan. The amber light of streetlamps ooze across their bodies, throwing long shadows into the living room.

 

Yuta's mouth doesn't stop moving against Doyoung's bobbing Adam's apple. "Do you want me to? If you ask, I'll stay." He kisses at the same spot over and over, lighting Doyoung's blood on fire. "You know I would."

 

He could do it. Keep him here forever just as he wanted. The words catch in Doyoung's throat and he's afraid Yuta's lips will feel them. Their eyes meet. Orange light casts over his face, shadows defining his handsome features. Here, in the hallway of the apartment, is where Doyoung could keep him as the centerpiece of exhibition, observe every inch of his beauty whenever he wanted.

 

"You would, wouldn't you," he murmurs, pushing Yuta's messy bangs back from his eyes.

 

"Only for you." And Yuta looks like he means it this time, eyes focused and for the first time, determined. "I'd drop it all to stay here in this chaotic, fucked up city with you." He groans and presses closer so their chests are flush. "I'd do my damndest for you, Doyoung."

 

He doesn't know how to react. His tongue is lead in his mouth, heavy, swollen, impossible to move. His brain is short-circuiting in the moment he needs it most, needs his body to scream _stay_ with every fiber of his being.

 

"Kiss me, please," Doyoung says instead, and Yuta does, hands on his hips, grounding him as much as possible. He becomes hyperaware of everything: Yuta's breath puffing over his mouth, the train tracks' click-click-click on the Brooklyn Bridge, fingertips dancing along his hipbones. He wants to freeze this moment into eternity, but knows too well that the sand in the hourglass can't fall in reverse.

 

They close their eyes and melt into the wall, into each other.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah even idk what i did with this one lmfaoooo i seem to really enjoy open-ended fics these days. go ahead and yell at me give me a kudos, comment and let me know what you think happened i wanna hear your thoughts as always
> 
> also is this format with more spacing okay??? i normally condense my posts so let me know about that too please
> 
> twitter: @tytrackian


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